Silent Slaughter (29 page)

Authors: C. E. Lawrence

BOOK: Silent Slaughter

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C
HAPTER
S
EVENTY-THREE

“
T
here’s no smoking in here,” Lee said.

“Oh, but there
is
,” Moran replied, “by definition, because
I’m
smoking. What you meant is that you’d
prefer
I didn’t smoke. I wish people would be more precise in their speech and avoid these illogical syllogisms.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t smoke.”

“Very well—why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

He rose from the chair and stubbed the cigarette out in the spider plant on the windowsill. Lee tensed and readied himself to spring out of the way of a bullet, but Moran sat down again calmly.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “The gun is just to ensure I have the upper hand, in case you had a mind to do something tedious, like attack me. Or call the police,” he added, seeing Lee’s eyes linger on the telephone next to the couch. “I wouldn’t advise it. I may not look athletic, but I’m quite agile, I assure you. I can be down the stairs and halfway to Third Avenue before your groggy neighbors manage to dial 911. And I
will
shoot to kill,” he said, pointing the muzzle at Lee’s chest.

“What do you want?” Lee asked.

“Please, sit down. There’s no need to be uncivil. After all, you and I are engaged in much the same kind of pursuit. We have so much to talk about. I did ask you to sit down,” he said when Lee didn’t move. “Please—I insist.” Lee perched on the arm of the sofa, but Moran shook his head. “On the sofa, if you would be so kind. You’re making me quite nervous. I should think you don’t want a man with a gun trained on you to be feeling jumpy.”

Lee sat slowly on the couch, without taking his eyes off Moran, who leaned back in the chair, still pointing the revolver directly at his chest. Lee noticed that the muzzle had been fitted with a silencer.
Organization, planning, follow-through.
Moran was as pure an example of an organized killer as he had ever seen. His job was to find a weakness—if there was one.

Moran wagged the gun at him. “You’re no doubt wondering how I managed to get in?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, come along, of course you are! Don’t be so coy. I am a skilled pickpocket, among other things,” Moran announced, holding up the key Lee had given to Chuck. “I’m afraid your friend was so preoccupied, he wasn’t much of a challenge,” he added with a sigh, tossing the key to Lee. “Oh, take it, by all means,” he said in response to Lee’s surprised look. “I’m quite done with it. I wouldn’t risk coming here again. I just wanted to have a quiet little chat in private, and this seemed like the best place for it. At the station house there were so many other people around—that horrid little detective friend of yours, for one. Does he ever stop eating? A strictly Freudian interpretation would be that he has an oral fixation, but I prefer to think he’s just gluttonous.” He crossed his legs and smiled. “What do you think? You’re the professional psychologist. Or is it psychiatrist? You have a Ph.D., not an M.D., if I recall correctly.”

“So you know everything about me.”

“I know what’s relevant—the fact that your sister disappeared six years ago, and your father ran off when you were just a boy. Oh, yes,” he said, in response to Lee’s tightening jaw, “I know that. But that’s common knowledge, isn’t it?”

“What do you want?”

“I already told you—just a little chat,
mano a mano
. Which, by the way, actually means
hand to hand
, not
man to man
, as some people think. It was originally used in bullfights to describe two matadors competing for the admiration of the crowd.”

Lee crossed his arms and leaned back, hoping to create the impression of being relaxed. “I’ve got all night,” he said with a glance at the gun. “Shoot.”

Edmund gave a little laugh, which twisted the left side of his face grotesquely. “Oh, I do like a man who preserves his wit in the face of danger. One thinks it’s only in the movies, but I’m so glad to see that that’s not true. So here’s what I propose, Dr. Campbell,” he said, leaning forward. “You call off your colleagues in this little chase, and I’ll let the girl live a little longer.”

Lee couldn’t help the expression of alarm that came over his face. He hoped Moran was bluffing but feared he wasn’t.

“Oh, yes, did I neglect to mention I have another . . . victim?” the professor said. “Quite a lovely girl, actually, with that corn-fed Midwestern naïveté you can’t fake. I like that in a woman, don’t you? Oh, that’s right—you prefer more assertive types. That journalist is quite a looker, by the way. Don’t worry,” he said, as Lee clenched his fists and bit his lip. “She’s not my type. At least not at the moment, though I suppose my tastes could change.... So, what do you think? Do we have a deal?”

“What deal?”

“You may continue in your pursuit of me, but
alone
—call off your friends, or the girl dies right now.”

“Why me?”

“I like you. Do I need another reason? You’re Ivy League–educated, like me—a man of the world, so to speak. You, too, enjoy the finer things in life—Bach, for example. You have
class
. Oh, don’t blush—you know it’s true.”

Lee wasn’t blushing, but he could feel his face reddening out of anger and frustration.
How did Moran know that Lee liked Bach? Had he been rooting around in the apartment before Lee awoke?
He felt violated, sullied by the man’s presence.

“I don’t have the authority—” he began.

“Call them off or she dies
now
,” Moran repeated.

“All right,” he said slowly, “it’s a deal.”

“You sure now?” Moran said. “Don’t try to double-cross me. You’ll regret it. I don’t like people who go back on their word.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“You’ll have to convince your colleagues that it’s for the best. That may take some doing.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Very well.”

“Do you—can you give me any kind of clue as to where she—”

Moran held up a hand, the fingers long and thin and tapered—the hands of an artist, some people might say.

“Please,” the professor said. “Don’t embarrass yourself by begging. It will leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I have so enjoyed our little chat. We have so much in common. It’s too bad you don’t know more about mathematics,” he added with a sigh, “but nobody’s perfect.”

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

Moran smiled again, the scar distorting his face, showing long, yellow teeth on the left side of his mouth. “It’s amazing what you can learn if you apply yourself. For instance, did you know that irrational mathematical constants go on forever? I quite like that, don’t you? In a sense, you might say they’re immortal.”

“Unlike us.”

Moran frowned. “I never took you for the glass-half-empty type, Dr. Campbell. Of course, there
is
your ongoing struggle with depression. I suppose that can put a damper on even the brightest of spirits, eh?”

Again Lee felt the heat rising to his face. He longed to lunge at the man sitting opposite him and beat him to a pulp.

Perhaps sensing his rage, Moran dangled the gun in his direction. “Now, now—mind you control that hotheaded Scottish temper of yours, or I shall be forced to defend myself. In any case, I must be going,” he said, unfolding his long body from the chair. “My lovely captive awaits me.” He sauntered to the front door and opened it, then turned back to Lee. “Oh, and if you try to follow me, I’ll shoot you.”

He slipped through the door, and Lee could hear his quick footsteps descending the stairs. He sprang from the sofa and charged down the steps, yanking open the front door to the building, but there was no sign of Moran. The street was empty except for a sleepy-looking man in striped flannel pajamas and an overcoat walking a minuscule white pom-pom of a dog. The dog sniffed energetically at the row of trash cans in front of Mc-Sorley’s, then lifted its tiny leg and let forth a thin stream of liquid. The urine melted into a puddle of steamy slush as the dog gave a couple of satisfied kicks with its hind legs and trotted triumphantly back to its owner.

Lee went back upstairs and climbed into bed, where he lay staring at the ceiling until a pale and weary dawn crept underneath his curtains.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTY-FOUR

“
Y
ou gotta be
kiddin’
me,” Butts said later that morning when Lee told him of Moran’s visit. “Who does this bozo think he is, Zorro?”

“So what do you think of his proposal?” Lee asked.

The detective tossed his half-eaten bagel into the trash. “It’s out of the question—you’re not even a
cop
, for Christ’s sake! I never heard of anything more—”

The phone on his desk rang, and he seized the receiver.

“Detective Butts.” He sank down into his chair and listened. “What’s her name?” he said. “Yeah, fax me anything you have on her, would you? Thanks.” He hung up and looked at Lee. “Well, one thing’s for sure—he wasn’t bluffing. Another college girl has gone missing. Her name’s Deborah Collins, and she was reported missing this morning by her roommate.”

Lee’s cell phone rang. The caller ID read
Fiona
, and he considered not answering it, but it could be an emergency. He flipped open the phone.

“Hi, Mom—has something happened?”

“No, I just wanted to—”

“So there’s no emergency?

“No, but—”

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t talk right now.”

“Your niece—”

“We have another missing girl—I really have to go.”

“But I just want—”

“I’ll call you later—
I have to go
,” he practically shouted. He closed the phone and slid it into his pocket, knowing he would have apologies to make later.

“So how will this pervert even know if we have other people lookin’ for him?” Butts said.

“I don’t know, but he seems to know a lot of things already.”

“He’s bluffing. And are you tellin’ me that he’s not gonna kill this poor girl anyway?”

“No, but there’s a chance he will keep her alive longer if he thinks—”

“The answer is still no!” Butts roared as Elena Krieger entered the office.

“The answer to what?” she asked, removing her matching gray beret and wool cape. As usual, she looked as if she had stepped out of a high-end catalogue.

Butts told her the whole thing, and she cocked her head to one side.

“What do you think?” she asked Lee.

“I think it’s worth a try. I can be in constant phone communication with a backup team, so long as they don’t come too close to me.”

“Where are you going to go?” Butts asked as the fax machine behind him hummed. He turned and plucked two pages from the document feed. “You don’t know where to find him.”

“I’ll go back to the Columbia campus. I think there’s a chance I’ll turn up something there.”

“Well, here’s who we’re lookin’ for,” Butts said, pinning two pictures of Debbie Collins up on the bulletin board above the photos of the other victims. She was a sweet-faced strawberry blonde with freckles and cornflower blue eyes. “I think we should send a SWAT team to his goddamn office,” Butts said, staring at the photo.

“No!” said Lee. “It might push him to kill her—even if it means getting caught himself.”

“I agree,” Krieger said.

“We don’t even know where he’s holding her,” said Butts. “After that stunt he pulled, comin’ to see you last night, I can get a judge to write a search warrant to toss his joint. Maybe we’ll find something there.”

“But if you do that, he might kill the girl,” Krieger pointed out.

“Well, I’m not going to just sit around!” Butts bellowed.

His desk phone rang again, and he grabbed it.

“Yeah? Chen, where the hell are you?” He listened for a moment, then frowned. “Okay, you can talk to him.” He handed the phone to Lee.

“Yeah, Jimmy?”

“Hi, Angus—what am I missing?”

“I’ll tell you later. What’s going on?”

“I had to take my brother to the hospital. He had an accident, had to get a few stitches. He’ll be okay. I just have to drop him off at home, and then I’ll be right over.”

“Get your ass over here!” Butts yelled into the phone from across the room.

“Hear that?” Lee asked.

“Yeah. I’ll have to bring Barry with me. He can sit in the lobby—he has a book of math puzzles.”

“Okay.”

“I’m at the hospital—I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

When Jimmy arrived, they caught him up on what was going on. He listened, wide-eyed, to Lee’s story of his encounter with Edmund Moran.

“Jesus,” he said. “This guy is cold. What are you going to do?”

There was a timid knock on the office door.

“What now?” Butts muttered, opening it. Barry Chen stood in the hall, clutching a paperback book of Sudoku logic puzzles. His left forearm was swathed in bandages, and a stain of yellow hospital disinfectant seeped out from the edges of the gauze. He carried a knapsack over one shoulder.

Jimmy stepped forward. “What is it, Barry?”

“I’ve finished,” Barry said, rocking gently back and forth, his eyes focused straight ahead. He didn’t seem to notice there were other people in the room.

“The whole book?” Jimmy said. “I just gave it to you!”

“I’ve finished the whole book,” Barry repeated. “In
fact
, you just gave it to me, and I’ve finished the whole book.”

“This your brother?” Butts asked.

“Yeah,” said Jimmy. “Sorry about that.”

Barry’s gaze fell on to the computer on Butts’s desk. “Can I use the computer?”

“That’s not mine,” Jimmy said.

“If I let him, will he screw it up?” Butts asked Jimmy.

“He’d be more likely to fix anything that’s wrong with it. He fixes all the computers of the people in our building.”

“He can use it,” Butts growled, “if it’ll shut him up.”

“Will you sit there quietly?” Jimmy asked Barry.

Still rocking, his brother nodded. “In
fact
, I will sit there quietly. No talking, only sitting quietly.”

“Okay, go ahead,” said Butts.

“Sitting quietly
,
” Barry whispered. “
Quiet.
”

He sat down at the computer without making eye contact with anyone in the room, including Jimmy. Krieger stared at him with fascination. Hunched over the machine, he typed methodically, seemingly unaware that everyone was watching him.

“Okay,” Butts said, “let’s get back to work.”

“Just give me twenty-four hours,” Lee said. “If I can’t turn up anything, then you can search his apartment, his office—everything.”

Butts bit his lip. “Where the hell is he keepin’ them?”

“Wherever it is,” Lee said, “he feels very secure there.”

“You think it’s around Columbia somewhere?” Jimmy asked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised, since Debbie Collins was last seen by her roommate on campus,” Lee replied.

“But it’s by no means certain,” Krieger interjected.

“That’s it,” Butts declared, seizing the phone. “I’m havin’ his place tossed.”

Lee grasped his wrist, and Butts glared at him like he was about to throw a punch at Lee.

“
Twenty-four hours,
” Lee said. “
Please
. Her life may depend on it.”

“What the hell you gonna do, Captain America?” Butts said. “You find the guy, and then what? We know he’s armed. Will you karate-kick your way to the girl?”

“Give me a gun,” said Lee.

Butts shook his head. “Out of the question. It’s against regulation, not to mention common sense.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Jimmy.

“He specifically stipulated I go alone.”

“I’ll go undercover—I’ll dress like a student.”

Krieger smiled, and Butts snorted. “You—a student?”

“I could pass for a grad student,” Jimmy insisted. “I’ll wear a backpack and sneakers.”

“That just might work,” said Krieger.

“Come on,” said Jimmy. “You can’t just let Angus go out there and get killed by this maniac.”

“Get . . . killed . . . maniac,” Barry hummed behind them, still typing. Lee realized they had all forgotten about him.

Butts glowered at him, then turned back to Jimmy.

“That still doesn’t solve the problem of where he’s hiding the girls.”

“You should start with the campus,” Krieger said.

Butts ran a hand through his meager blond hair, making it stand up in pointed spears, like the crown on the Statue of Liberty. “Where the hell do you hide a kidnap victim on a college campus?”

“Especially one as populated as Columbia University,” Krieger added.

“The tunnels,” Barry said, without taking his eyes off the computer screen.

“I thought you said he was going to be quiet!” Butts bellowed. “For Christ’s sake, Chen—”

“Wait a second,” said Lee. “What did he just say?”

“What did you say, Barry?” asked Jimmy.

Barry stopped typing. “The tunnels,” he said without looking up. “Columbia University has a series of subterranean tunnels connecting many of the buildings on campus. The oldest of the tunnels was originally built when the site was home to a mental institution in the nineteenth century.” His tone was flat, as though he was reciting memorized knowledge.

Butts stared at him. “What the—”

“Barry has a photographic memory,” Jimmy explained. “He must have read that somewhere.”

“What else can you tell us, Barry?” Krieger asked, her eyes gleaming.

“There are rumors of a tunnel between the Butler and Low Libraries,” Barry continued, “but no such tunnel has ever been found.”

“Barry,” Lee said. “Is there an entrance to the tunnels in the math building?”

“There is an entrance on the basement level of the Mathematics Building, which was taken over by radical students during the riots of 1968.”

Butts looked at Barry, then back at Jimmy.

“I’ll have a SWAT team on standby. Go!” he said. “And take him with you!”

They didn’t stick around long enough for him to change his mind.